The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is “directly at odds with free-market conservatives,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Last cycle, the Club’s PACs invested heavily in Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse. This year, our biggest investment is for Pat Toomey. We’ve backed Marco Rubio, Jeff Flake, Tim Scott, Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee,” McIntosh told TheDCNF. “Which of those does the Chamber oppose? In fact, we found a number of those candidates and the Chamber went along,” said McIntosh.
The Club for Growth’s harsh words for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was in response to an interview TheDCNF conducted with U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior political strategist Scott Reed.
“We don’t agree with the Club for Growth because the Club for Growth endorses candidates that want to shut down the government and that’s a fundamental fault line for us,” Reed told TheDCNF when The Club for Growth came up in conversation.
“That’s not to say we don’t take opposite sides from the Chamber,” The Club for Growth president clarified to TheDCNF. “They [the U.S. Chamber of Commerce] supported the Obama stimulus, Medicare Part D, the Wall Street bailouts, the crony capitalism of the Export-Import Bank, and increasing the gas tax. All of those are big-government positions that put the Chamber directly at odds with free-market conservatives, so it’s natural that we won’t agree on all candidates.”
While The House Freedom Caucus acknowledged TheDCNF’s request for comment, they did not comment on Reed’s remarks. In his interview with TheDCNF, Reed said he was not worried about a reported alliance between the Club for Growth and the House Freedom Caucus because, “we believe in peace through strength.”
Neither the Club for Growth nor The Freedom Caucus got back to TheDCNF when asked if they had a formal, coordinated fundraising arrangement as has recently been reported by POLITICO. TheDCNF also reached out to the personal office of House Freedom Caucus Chairman Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio which did not return a request for comment regarding Reed’s remarks.
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